Chaebol and Economic Disparity

Chaebol is a term to describe  South Korean large conglomerate. As some of you may know, the economy of South Korea largely depends on Chaebol as the top 10 large multinational corporations take up 75% of GDP in South Korea.

But I just learnt that the 90% of employees are taken up by small and medium-sized businesses, and yet the rest of the 10% (Chaebol) dominate the GDP share in South Korea. This certainly tells us about economic disparity. Workers at small and medium-sized businesses do not economically benefit as much as those at large corporations do.

From the South Korean national government`s perspective, however, it cannot easily give a solution for the economic marginalization. These South Korean multinationals lead the economy of South Korea and yet their existence cannot support the employment in South Korea. Thus, the government needs to consider benefit and loss for each conflicting groups and take a policy which allows both to benefit to some extent (win-win solution!).

Still, to me, ensuring the equity within the country would be relatively more important than allowing small portion of people to dominate the country.